Sometimes something so amazing happens that it defies explanation. I have always felt called to share the remarkable story of this waterfall photo from Medjugorje, but the time was never right. Now it is.

The Photo Itself

Before I tell the story, it is probably best to begin by looking at the photo in a quick 3-slide progression. The first slide is the original 1991 image completely untouched. The second two are images of the Blessed Mother that – more than 25 years later – can now be overlaid to better reveal the same image in the original.

(NOTE: This displays MUCH better on a larger screen. Trust me: it’s worth the effort to pull it up in a larger format)

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This picture literally helped save my faith when I was a young man.

Today, nobody in my family knows exactly where the original negative is. (Speculation: probably in a drawer somewhere at my parents’ house!) In a digital world, preserving a crisp electronic copy would not be a problem. But this photo was taken more than 25 years ago with old fashioned film. Making copies of copies has lead to a more blurry image, but it still remains clear enough for almost everyone to see.

The original untouched photo is in the upper left. The other three have been progressively overlaid to better reveal the original.

Context and Background of My Family and the Apparitions at Medjugorje

In the late 1980s and early ’90s, while I was studying at the University of Notre Dame, my Dad and Mom went on a series of pilgrimages to Medjugorje (in then Yugoslavia), a holy place where the Blessed Mother of Jesus was reportedly appearing to some young people with a message of conversion, peace, prayer, fasting, reading the bible, and the frequent reception of the sacraments of confession and the Eucharist.

These pilgrimages had a profound positive effect on both of them and most everyone else in our large Catholic family. Since most people who read this story will not know me or my family personally, it’ll be helpful to know a little bit about us for context.

Mom and Dad had 12 children of their own, then lost #13 during pregnancy. So how did they respond? They went and signed up to provide foster care whenever Catholic Charities needed to place a newborn for a month or two. After about a dozen such placements, one of these babies remained with our family for two years while a court decided his fate. When the court ruled that the little boy could be adopted, Mom and Dad defied convention and adopted him themselves. This was an unpopular move with some people because my new sibling in our 100% Polish family was black. There is no sense in naming names and rehashing unpleasant details. Let’s just say that this did not go over very well with everyone. But Mom and Dad never flinched. At least they never flinched in front of us. That is how this adorable little boy, Johnny, became my 12th sibling.

With my little brother, Johnny in 1987

He was brought into a family home brimming with love and faith and goodness. It was often chaotic, but mostly controlled chaos. Mom was always busy taking care of the kids and the house. If she ever got involved in anything else, it was usually the Right to Life movement and perhaps lending a hand to a neighbor in need. Dad was active in the Knights of Columbus and served on school boards and parish or diocesan councils. We often prayed the family rosary during Lent, but the rosary really became a primary focus of our family after Mom and Dad started visiting Medjugorje. That’s when the tenor of the house became dramatically more faith filled. Instead of just during Lent, we began to pray it together every night.

I have to admit that I didn’t always enjoy their commitment to pray the family rosary.

Regardless of it’s inconvenience, Mom and Dad stood firm. If we had friends over to the house they had two choices: either join us or wait for us in another room. This made us kids feel awkward, but it also taught us a lesson about priorities and commitment. Praying those family rosaries together blessed us in a way that is hard to overstate. All of this took our family’s spiritual life to a deeper level.

In January of 1991, Dad took my sister Lisa and some of her friends on this pilgrimage. While the group was elsewhere, Dad went with a local guy named Mario to a nearby waterfall to go fishing. Although they didn’t catch anything, it was a serene and comforting setting that brought my Dad peace. When it was time to leave, Dad stood on a tree that had fallen into the river and took one picture to capture the moment – and that was that.

Three months later back home, Lisa was alone in her bedroom looking through the stack of photos when she noticed something stunning. In subsequent days her discovery set off an impressive series of incidents where a person would look at the photo and immediately feel called to renew his or her faith.

What everyone saw still impresses me to this day. It is obviously an image formed simply by the water. But how? How could water “know” to form an image of Our Lady at the precise moment that my dad took that photo? How could the water molecules just “happen” to form the same image of Our Lady that had brought so many pilgrims to that place?

Remember, this is 1991 in the days well before photo-shopping technology. Photos were taken on film, not digitally. As was the custom in those days, the film was dropped off at a local drug store to be developed and they came back in a large batch. It took a long time for people to come to the house to look at them.

As amazement spread, Dad made copies to give to people. Hundreds, if not thousands of people ended up scrutinizing it. As more and more people looked, they found some other images. For instance, a great many people see the image of an angel in the traditional pose of crowning the Blessed Mother as queen. (For my non-Catholic Christian friends who may raise an eyebrow here, here is a Catholic explanation of Mary’s queenship.) In the slide show below, I have interspersed the waterfall photo with some traditional depictions of angels crowning Mary, a relatively common theme in Catholic art.

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It would be hard to exaggerate the effect that this photo has had on many many people both inside my own circle of family and friends and outside of it. My family has many stories which chronicle the ways this photo has touched people’s hearts and brought them to Christ.

A Bishop

Here’s just one small story to illustrate the effect. Back in the early ’90s, I was friends with two young men from Panama named Carlos and Ernesto who were living at Moreau Seminary and studying at Notre Dame. Their sponsor and mentor was Archbishop Marcos McGrath, CSC, the Archbishop of Panama and a Holy Cross priest. Although they were not seminarians, they lived in the seminary and participated in its community life. Carlos and Ernesto were periodic visitors to my parents’ house in Elkhart, Indiana. Both were impressed and touched by the photo. When Dad gave Ernesto a 5″x7″ copy, Ernesto asked if he could have another one to give to Archbishop McGrath. When Ernesto returned from Panama after his visit, he returned to see my dad. Much to my Dad’s surprise, he carried with him a request from the archbishop for a larger version of the photo!

Archbishop McGrath was so deeply touched by it that he wanted to frame and display it for his own private devotion!

A couple years later, when I hit a time of great darkness and skepticism in my own spiritual life, I can remember turning to this photograph many times thinking, “There is just no possible way that the water formed these images by coincidence. That would be just too absurd to believe!”

By this time, I had already studied logical proofs of the existence of God. I understood how scientific study of the created world made the probability of God highly likely. Yet despite the mountains of evidence I had already carefully evaluated and accepted, I was still somehow unsure whether God was a personal God who really knew and loved me.

Sadly, I had also encountered some snobby Catholics who condescendingly thought praying the rosary was silly. In the seminary, those of us who prayed it were sometimes questioned or ridiculed. As a young and naive person in this kind of atmosphere, I began to question this practice myself. I didn’t want to be simpleton. At the same time, I also began to question the very existence of a personal and intimate God.

This waterfall photo helped call me back to faith. Like an icon or religious piece of art, I turned to it over and over again in times of struggle and doubt. Through it, the Blessed Mother seemed to whisper into my soul, “My son is real. Do whatever He tells you!”

I didn’t hear this with my ears, but it was much more than a thought. I heard it! Whenever I doubted my own sanity, I would listen to other people’s stories about how much this photo had re-energized their own faith. These testimonies helped to strengthen mine. Eventually, I left the seminary and got married. My wife and I visited Medjugorje as part of our honeymoon in 1996.

Exact same location five years later. Note that the water flows at different rates during different times of the year. Not so much flow in the summer of 1996.

Over the years, I have seen only good fruit come from the “tree” of Medjugorje. So many people have testified that the messages of Medjugorje have led to a renewed prayer life, a return to the Sacraments of the Church, and an attitude of service to others. These people share a more vibrant faith and especially a deepened devotion to the Holy Eucharist. It has impressed me deeply to this day.

Before I conclude, I’d like to point out one more image in the photo. Some among my family and friends have called it “the silent scream.” I think it looks very much like Edvard Munch’s “The Scream.” Different people have different interpretations of it. I’m not going to offer one here, but take a look:

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Conclusion

If you see the images in the water and it helps you, then great. If you do not see anything remarkable, then no problem. True faith is based on a lot more than an image in a photograph. It is not necessary to be impressed by this photo, but it has helped me more than I can adequately describe. Thank you, Blessed Mother, for this precious gift. Amen.

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The Side of the House

The Side of the House is a blog by Robert Kloska. He has no delusion that his blog is any good. He also realizes that the Side of the House violates lots of best practices in blogging. But he's not trying to be a professional blogger. Rather, he's just sharing his sincere thoughts. Your comments, encouragement, and differing points of view are welcome. This blog is simply an extension of what actually occurs on the side of the Kloska house in South Bend, Indiana.
You are most welcome here! House rules: 1) You must be a person of goodwill; and 2) You must try be friendly and polite to everyone.
In person, Robert is usually known as "BK", "Bobby", or "Bob." Nobody really calls him Robert despite the fact that he really likes that name. ;)

16 thoughts on “The Amazing Waterfall at Medjugorje”

I remember going to church at St. Vincent’s in Elkhart, IN. Lisa was my instructor when I was becoming Catholic. Your father gave me a copy of the photo graph and I remember seeing many images in it . As I recall to the left of the image there seems to be a reaper looking image. And above in the sunlight you could see the image of Jesus. Ther are many images in that waterfall photograph . I adore our Blessed Mother and am thankful to see the image again after many years of not seeing it. And glad that’s it has become public.

Sure, Richard. If you know how to post them in the comments that would be great. I know some people would be interested. I can’t even tell you how many different images people have seen in this photo. I simply highlighted the most prominent, but we always enjoy hearing what other people have seen.

Wow! I see several faces. To way left of the Blessed Mother, there appears to be a nun/saint with hands together in prayer. To right I see what appears to be Jesus. I see the screaming face with another dark figure just above and to right of the screaming face. Down and to the left appears to be a figure with horns coming out of the forehead. I’d outline all the images I see if would be of interest to anybody.

I agree with the post…the very large image on the bottom right which appears to me to be the face of Mary with a veil, or a nun with the veil of a habit…not the scream. I guess we all see what we are predisposed to see.

I want to thank you for posting this. As one who had had brief encounter to our Lady when I was 22, this bears much significance to me. I saw something in the waterfall that suddenly jumped into view and I hope you can see it too.
“The Scream” is something entirely different.
What I am seeing is a smiling nun with a black veil fringed with white similar to what a Carmelite would wear. Her face is in the white area just above the open mouth of “the Scream” and her black veil surrounds the face and looks like it rests upon her shoulders. The nun’s smiling gaze is slightly down and slightly left. I hope you see it, because it is amazing! Could be another image of Mary, not sure.

I see the Blesses Mother. On her left is the angel who appears to be crowning Jesus on the cross, Who is on Our Lady’s right side as you look at the picture. There’s also a face behind the screaming face. We have a few photos here that have images in them. Very interesting.

Marene, The Grotto is on the campus of the University of Notre Dame. Drive up to South Bend and the guard at the campus gate will give you directions for how to find it. Be sure to visit the beautiful Basilica of the Sacred Heart which is only a few hundred feet away. 🙂

Thank you for sharing! Living outside of Indianapolis, I would love to visit these places in Northern Indiana — can you help me find them? Also, the Silent Scream doesn’t resonate with me — however, to the RIGHT of that, I definitely see a person kneeling in prayer — looks to be like she is hovered over a rock facing the Blessed Mother– in complete awe and homage. Thank you for sharing and spurring the hearts of believers.

I was so excited to see you had finally shared the story of the waterfall! I read through this blog post with tears in my eyes because the photo and the story bring such a rush of emotions and memories. Although Bob knows this already, I’ll preface the remainder of my post by saying that I first encountered the waterfall photo in 1994-95, when I was meeting with Bob’s sister Lisa in her office at St. Vincent de Paul Church in Elkhart, Indiana. She was the RCIA director, and I, as a protestant about to marry a Catholic, had many questions about the Catholic faith. For weeks, Lisa invited me to meet with her personally and we talked for hours until I decided I wanted to become Catholic and began the RCIA classes. I had seen this beautiful photo of a waterfall framed in her office and finally asked about it one day. She told the photo had been taken in Medjugorje, where there had been apparitions of the Virgin Mary for many years. Of course, I had never even heard of Medjugorje or any visions, but when she pointed out the image in the photo, I was truly amazed by it. I think what impressed me the most about it is that it not only looked like Mary, but it looked like OUR LADY OF MEDJUGORJE!! To this day, I have continued to tell dozens of people about this photo even though I had never seen it again after I moved from the parish. That is, until Bob’s photo of the Grotto showed up in my newsfeed a few weeks ago. Recognizing his name I asked about the photo and told him if I could even just *see* it again it would mean so much to me. He graciously complied.

In between my first encounter with the waterfall photo and my “reunion” with it last month, the image came to mean so much more to me than just a “cool” photo. In 2007 I was diagnosed with two ruptured discs in my spine and a failed back surgery followed by poor pain management left me practically bedridden for a couple of years. I felt so useless and hopeless and many times struggled with my faith. During that time I began reading books about Our Lady of Medjugorje. With my fundamentalist protestant background, I had never had much of a connection to our mother Mary even though I wished I did. But these stories from Medjugorje, especially those of physical OR spiritual healing, touched my heart and I desperately wanted to make a pilgrimage there. It also reminded me of Lisa, who meant the world to me. I have no doubt that God brought us together because without HER loving presence and generosity of spirit, I may not have decided to become Catholic.

After I changed doctors I slowly got back on my feet and got my life back, no doubt in large part due to the faithful prayers of many people and the grace of God to help me put one foot in front of the other – sometimes literally. I’m still not 100% and I never will be. I still haven’t made it to Medjugorje, but I still want to very very much. I’m still not very close to the Virgin Mary, but I still want to find that connection, and I’m still working toward it. I still have my encounters with the “Dark Night of the Soul” (see: St. John of the Cross), but God still gives me the grace to keep moving forward physically AND spiritually.

While I can’t say that this photo had some tangible miraculous effect on my life, the fact that it has remained in my heart all these years – despite not seeing it again until recently – speaks to the power of these images. It doesn’t matter to me whether this is an apparition or a purely coincidental effect of nature…what is seen, when it has the effect of drawing toward Mary and in turn drawing us to Christ, THAT is what matters. How the photo effects each person is completely different, but the fact that it can do so – that God CONTINUES His work in us without ceasing…. THAT IS the miracle. Hallelujah, light has come – Emmanuel!

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